Valentine’s Day Pesto Cracker Chips

Feb12

These tasty little things can pass as a chip or a cracker. Either way try them. These are super fast and easy to put together. These would be perfect for a Valentine’s Day lunchbox or as part of a cheese or charcuterie board to have with wine. You can change up the shape to suit whatever occasion you are celebrating.

Take a package of wonton wrappers and use a cookies cutter to cut out the shapes you want to use.

Place the shapes on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with pesto and just a very light sprinkle of salt.

Bake in a 350F oven for about 8 minutes, until golden at the edges.

Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container. Lasts for a few days, but ours did not last to make it into a container.

As you can see, we tried a few tree shapes that we could use for Christmas and pumpkins for Halloween.

One note about the pesto, if you are putting in a lunchbox check the pesto for nuts. Both pesto types that I bought contained nuts. Our school is nut free so I couldn’t put them in the lunchbox. I have to find a nut free commercial pesto or make my own.

You could also just brush them with a little olive oil and sprinkle of salt to make a plain cracker-chip. That is how I will use the rest of my wontons for the valentines lunchbox.

Chicken pesto flatbreads with arugula salad

Jul24

This looks fancy but really is very easy, fast and delicious. Perfect for busy summer days!

I used prepared flatbreads and brushed with olive oil, add small dallops of pesto all over, added cut up cooked chicken breast (vegetarian option-leave out chicken) and topped with crumbled goat cheese. Then bake this in 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for 5 minutes.

Take out and top with arugula (dressed with balsamic vinaigrette) top with a few cherry or grape tomato halves. Drizzle with balsamic glaze. That’s it, quick, fancy and delicious. Just pop open a nice bottle of wine et voila!

In My Kitchen September 2016

Sep10

Welcome back IMK friends! The IMK hiatus is over and we are back sharing what is going on in our kitchens. Summer is over, school is back in and schedules are busier than ever. Here are a few things that we have in our kitchen.

Olive oils and balsamic vinegars that we picked up while on vacation.

A new locally made maple and birch cutting board.

All of this pottery was made by Evie in her pottery camp, a jar,some little pinch pots and an owl in a nest.

My friend brought me this pie mound from a trip to England

We went apple picking and got cider and warm apple cider donuts as well.
Some of the apples was made into apple sauce, may get us through winter

And made some dill pickle relish to use on burgers.

Looking forward to visiting some of your kitchens.

Stewed Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Feta

Sep5

I received a blog post in my inbox from Alexandra for this chickpea stewy dish and decided to try it because 1) Evie loves chickpeas 2) had a bowl full of cherry tomatoes from our garden and 3) needed a vegetarian meal. Perfect right?

Before I forget here is the link to the recipe on Alexandra’s website, https://www.alexandracooks.com/2016/08/30/stewy-chickpeas-tomatoes-feta/

First of all you need to sweat some garlic in olive oil, you do this slowly on low heat, I probably used 4-5 cloves sliced and roughly chopped. Just let the garlic cook down until soft. Then I stirred in 2 cans of chickpeas, probably about 4 cups.

Then I roughly chopped 3 regular medium sized tomatoes and about 2-3 cups halved cherry/grape tomatoes.

Throw all of the tomatoes into the chickpeas. Stir. Then I added about 1/2-3/4 of a bottle of capers. And a large splash of balsamic vinegar. Turn up the heat to medium to get simmering and the tomatoes will start to release their juices. I sprinkled with little salt and black pepper. Once it is simmering and nice and stewy throw in a large handful or two of chopped fresh basil.

When Evie walked into the kitchen she promptly stated that isn’t stew there is no broth, that is not enough broth. Right away she decided it was not going to be good. Until she tried then she gave me that look that says oh, actually I do like it.

Toast some crusty bread or baguette in a hot pan with olive oil to serve with the chickpeas.

Top chickpeas with crumbled feta and serve with toasted bread. It was delicious!

Evie’s Chunky Chips

Jul1

Evie here and I am here to tell you how to make my chunky oven chips.

you will need

how ever many potatoes you need, cut into wedges (we used Russet it is a good baking potato)…Mom here with a little more detail, we used 3 large potatoes

2 tablespoons of olive oil (or more if you need it, toss around to coat)

a sprinkle of sea salt (to taste)

a sprinkle of ground black pepper (to taste)

Bake at 400F for about 40 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Happy Canada Day!

Now I am making a special Canada Day desert.

Moldavian Potato Salad

Aug29

This potato salad was given to me by a friend, it has a lot of flavour with feta, dill and so garlicky. It is different from other potato salads in that there is no mayo.

6 medium sized red potatoes, boiled in salted water until tender. Once cooled enough to touch cut into chunks.

Place 1/3 cup olive oil and 2 large cloves of garlic minced in a large bowl, throw in potatoes and toss to coat

Cool to room temperature.

Then add 1 cup of crumbled feta, 3tbsp red wine vinegar and 2 tbsp chopped fresh dill and 1/4 cup chopped green onions. I didn’t have green onions so I didn’t add those. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss gently to coat.

Allow to sit at least 1 hour before serving.

Roasted Eggplant Dip

Aug4

I guess you could call this baba ganoush ( i know that is probably not spelled right), no matter what you cal it or how you spell it, it is GOOD!

Take two small eggplants (about 500-600g total) and poke holes all over with a fork

Roast them in a 350F oven until they are very soft (about 45 minutes). They will look all shrivelled like this

Let them cook completely then peel or scoop out the insides and mash them. Place in a sieve and let them drain for awhile.

While the eggplants are cooking heat 2 tbsps olive oil in a pan and add 1 very finely chopped sweet onion and 3 large cloves of minced garlic.

Cook until golden and soft.

Add the drained eggplant mash to this and stir looking for about 5 minutes, take off heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. Let cool.

Once this is cooled, stir in 1 cup plain greek yogurt. Taste a little on a pita chip and season with some more salt if needed.

Chill until ready to serve.

Serve with pita chips. We will post the recipe for those the next time we make them, as I wasn’t thinking about the post completely since it was getting late as I was making this for a work pot luck and I needed to get finished so I could go to bed!

Very nice if you finely chop a few fresh mint leaves and sprinkle over just before serving.

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson.

Beet and Feta Salad

Jun21

This salad is a regular at our dinner table in summer. It pairs well with grilled food and picnics.

I used about 2lbs of beets.

leave a little bit of the root end and stem end attached to the beets, boil them in a large pot of water until a knife can slide easily through the beet, probably takes about 20 minutes depending on the side of the beets, I try to use smallish sized beets. Once cooked drain the beet.

Now comes the messy part. Once the beets are cool enough to handle, cut off the root end and stem end. Then slip off the skins. You will have to use a little bit of force but it should yield pretty easily. The you can cup beet into bite sized chunks. If you want to be little fancier you can slice them.

Chill in the fridge.

While the beets are chilling make the dressing, whisk together 2 Tbsp olive oil, 4 tsp white wine vinegar, large pinch of salt and pepper to taste and a couple pinches of sugar.

Drizzle with the dressing and toss to coat. Arrange beets in serving dish.

Just before serving (otherwise the feta will turn pink) sprinkle with crumbled feta. Sometimes I also sprinkle with chopped fresh mint. Today I got lazy as I was making several recipes at once, so I didn’t use the mint.

Lemony Chicken Skewers

May14

Food Revolution Day is May 15, 2015, it was started by Jamie Oliver a few years ago, following in the spirit of his Food Revolution cookbook, which I have and use often. I highly recommend it as it is a great book. It is all about making your own, good, healthy real food. Making your own food doesn’t have to be complicated, some of the best meals are very simple. This recipe is one of those. I found the original recipe in a magazine and have tweaked it to be quicker and easier, but it is healthy and full of flavour.

This is a great summer recipe, very tasty and perfect on the grill, but good in the oven too. Especially nice because you can throw everything in a zip top back to marinade all day and then grill in the evening.

I will spare you the photos of cutting up raw chicken. The chicken should be cut in chunks big enough to be threaded onto a bamboo skewer, maybe an inch or two.

Place chicken in a zip top bag along with 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp minced garlic, 1&1/2 tsp dried oregano, and 1/2 tsp salt. Shake around to coat chicken and place in refrigerator all day (or at least a an hour).

Thread onto bamboo skewers that have been pre-soaked in water for a couple of hours (so they don’t catch fire), or you can use metal skewers if you have them. Grill until cooked through.

These skewers are good served with greek pita that has been warmed on the grill , tzatziki (i know that is spelled wrong) and a nice salad. We made Jamie Oliver’s chopped salad from his Food Revolution book, it is really good.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

Apr18

I haven’t made hummus in a long time. It is so easy just to pick up a container at the grocery store. The last few times I made hummus we didn’t eat much of it and it ended up in the bin, the garlic was too strong. This time I decided to roast the garlic first to make it sweet and mellow. It worked wonderfully, it was really good, from now on I will roast the garlic before adding it to hummus.

This really is quite simple to make so if you like hummus and have never made it you should.

To roast the garlic:

Take a whole garlic bulb and cut the top off. Place the bulb in a piece of foil drizzle it in a good glug of olive oil, wrap and bake in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes. It should look golden and sticky when done.

Sometimes I roast a few bulbs at time and once cooled place them in a jar covered in olive oil for use in recipes. They keep for weeks like that as long as they are completely covered in oil.

For the hummus:

Place a (540ml) can of chick peas,(rinsed and drained) into a food processor.

Add the full bulb of garlic (squeeze the cloves out of the bulb, discard the peel)

Add about 3 Tbsp tahini (sesame paste)

freshly squeezed lemon juice lemon juice, to taste. At least a 3 tbsp.

and a generous pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp ground cumin and 3 tbsp water

Blitz it, drizzling in a few tbsp olive oil until it is nice and smooth. I usually stop a few times to scrape down the sides and continue blitzing. Taste and see if you need more lemon or salt. Add what you want to get the flavour and continue processing until it is as smooth as you want.

Serve drizzled in more olive oil. I sprinkled with some sumac.

We served it for dinner with a salad that Evie made (all by herself), homemade pita breads and beef kabobs.

The recipes for the pita and kabobs will follow soon!

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

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